


Shellfish Desires

by TK_DuVeraun



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, God why, Humor, So many OCs, bad people written sympathetically, it's all OCs here, it's the power couple mermaid au what are you expecting, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 12:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14832128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_DuVeraun/pseuds/TK_DuVeraun
Summary: Vasili Sokolov's life was going great until his twin killed a human and got them both put on display in an aquarium with their magic fettered. Oh well, at least there's another captive merman for them to torment.Mermay Mermaid AU for thePower Couple. It's all OCs either made for Dragon Age or with Thedosian counterparts.





	Shellfish Desires

**Author's Note:**

> It's tangentially related at best, but it's just for the lolz. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> If you're not familiar with my writing or the Power Couple or Amrita, I have no idea why you're here, but grab a chair and enjoy!
> 
> The Twins and Fox are mine. Fox's little blonde girlfriend is Elashorei Lavellan owned by [Elalavella](https://elalavella.tumblr.com/) and the skittish girl in hospital scrubs is Amrita Trevelyan owned by [LutraGem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LutraGem/pseuds/LutraGem).

“This is all your fault,” Vasili said. His expression was sullen with a deep crease between his eyebrows and mouth curved in something between a frown and a pout. He knocked his closed fist on the tank glass, but without any real strength behind it. The magical red marks on his skin pulsed dimly.

“ _ My _ fault?!” Terenti cried. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re the one who decided fornicating with a human was a good idea.”

“And it would have been  _ fine _ if you hadn’t  _ killed her brother! _ ” Vasili tugged on the shock collar around his neck, but to no avail. His fingers glowed with magic, but, as before, it didn’t affect the electronics. 

In the next tank over, Fox was floating upside-down. In his hands was an illusory book that flickered in and out of existence as his own magic waxed and waned. Seemingly unbothered by it, Fox turned the page. “I don’t know why you idiots are  _ surprised _ to be locked up. Slavery and genocide is all humans are good for.”

“Of course  _ you’d _ say that. You’ve been an exhibit your entire life,” Terenti snarled back.

Fox raised his book and looked at them from under the bottom of it. “Are you trying to  _ defend _ the humans?”

“I’m not  _ trying _ to do anything. I’m insulting you,” Terenti said. He yanked at his own shock collar, partially choking himself. After giving up on it, he sank to the bottom of the tank he shared with Vasili.

Vasili bit back a sigh scrubbed the irritated gills on his neck. He’d assumed humans wanted merfolk for their magic. Not to gawk at and try to make them do tricks. He plucked a minnow out of the water in front of him and bit the thing’s head off. As Vasili crunched on the bones he contemplated their situation. Surely there was  _ some _ way out of this aquarium.

\---

The next day the merfolk exhibit was open, Vasili and Terenti alternated between sulking and making rude hand-gestures at the humans. The “handlers” kept trying to get them to speak in Trade, but the twins responded by speaking mermish more aggressively. Even the threat of bland, cooked fishcake for their next several meals couldn’t make them cooperate. Hell, if Fox wasn’t playing along out of Stockholm Syndrome after thirty-some years in the tank the twins weren’t going to break for anything.

So the three mermen sulked and did nothing. Vasili was sure Fox was bored out of his mind. He hadn’t seen the other meran go more than ten minutes without fiddling with magic or reading his illusory books, but apparently those small enjoyments weren’t up for public viewing. However, around noon, the red-head swam up to the top of his tank.

Vasili spoke to his brother in mermish, “Oy, look, Red’s doing something.”

“Well don’t be obvious about it,” Terenti replied. He glanced at the other tank from the corner of his eyes. “We don’t want these monsters to know something interesting’s happening.”

Vasili rolled his eyes, he didn’t need to be told that, but said nothing. Mermish was a magical language, so there was no chance of the humans ever figuring out what they were saying, but the sticky, awful, shouting human children always pounded their disgusting fists on the glass when they spoke.

Fox had his arms crossed and hooked over the top of his tank. Though he was in easy reach of any humans up on the catwalk, he must have been using some magic to keep them away. It was strange that random humans were allowed up there at all. In theory, any of them could reach out and murder one of the monsters, but with the shock collars crippling their magic they couldn’t shapeshift into humans and make their escape. So in summary: Vasili didn’t know what Fox was doing. Splashing the visitors warranted a hit from the shock collar, so it was unlikely  _ murder _ was on the docket. Vasili probably would have liked him more if it was.

Eventually, an elven woman with white-blonde hair and an ethereal beauty stepped up to Fox’s tank. Vasili blinked at her a few times. He’d never thought of any elf or human as beautiful before so-  _ Ah, that’s it. Of course _ , he thought as his dampened magic surfaced enough for him to see through the illusions. Yes, the person was in elven form, but merfolk could always see each other for what they really were. He suddenly resented thinking she was pretty. He made a rude gesture at her before turning his back on them.

Terenti snorted from the other side of the tank. “You’d think he’d get his little girlfriend to break him out of here.”

Vasili sneered. “Her magic isn’t going to work any better on these collars than ours did.”

“Yeah, but she can just steal a pair of bolt-cutters,” Terenti said.

“Shh! If we’re going to be stuck here, don’t give them any ideas for getting his stupid fins out.”

\---

There were no gawkers for the next several days, which also meant no girlfriend for Fox. The twins had taken to throwing scaly, fleshless fishtails into Fox’s tank at every opportunity, but the older merman, annoyingly, had enough magic to dispose of them. It really wasn’t fair. He had also, annoyingly, been more popular with the tourists. Not that Vasili didn’t want to murder every one of them, but he and Terenti were new attractions  _ and _ twins. Surely that should have made them more interesting.

Vasili was still pouting and plotting vengeance when someone walked into their room. His fins straightened and stiffened in irritation and rage when he saw she was wearing scrubs. He fanned them out, blocking the view of most of his tank.  _ Great. They’re going to do more experiments. _

The woman approached on the catwalks on the upper level near the tops of the tanks. She had a red and white cooler that practically dragged on the floor, but probably out of personal weakness rather than it weighing anything significant, Vasili spitefully decided.

With far less enthusiasm than when his secret girlfriend visited, Fox nonetheless swam to the top of his tank. His expression was mostly blank, but the unhappy crease between his eyebrows didn’t disappear. His tail thrashed under the surface of the water and he held only his head and the tops of his shoulders out of the water.

The woman’s hands shook when she opened the cooler and held out some oysters to Fox. With deliberately slow movements, Fox took the oysters and dropped them into his tank. Whether he planned to eat them later or spitefully ignore them, Vasili didn’t know. He didn’t particularly care, either. He was too busy wrangling what little magic got through the collar for the purpose of teleporting the oysters into  _ his _ tank.

“You… Can you understand me?” The woman asked. She leaned as close to the tank as she could from the catwalk.

Fox lifted his chin and stared at her for a moment before nodding once.

“Can you… Talk like this? Or only in human shape?”

With a disdainful sniff, Fox flung himself out of the water just so he could dive dramatically into his tank. Vasili was almost impressed with how much magic he wasted on such a petty endeavor. 

The woman leaned more over the tank then, looking desperate and not because her toes were no longer touching the rough metal. “No, I’m sorry, I just- Something happened- I didn’t mean- Fox, I’m sorry.”

At the sound of his name, Fox swam back up to the top, though his expression bordered on fury. In Vasili’s opinion, he should have stayed spitefully down there, for no reason other than that the woman might give  _ him _ the rest of the oysters in the cooler. It was rather large, afterall.

“Don’t you prefer being addressed by name rather than ‘you,’ said like some pejorative?” Fox snarled at her.

It was terribly uncalled for. He definitely didn’t deserve anymore oysters. Vasili crossed his arms and tapped his fingers against them impatiently.

The woman shrieked in surprise and fell backwards onto the catwalk.

Fox pulled himself halfway out of his tank and used magic to darken the area around him and make his eyes glow - though because his magic waxed and waned, it looked more silly than intimidating. “And why should I speak for the entertainment of my torturers that put me on display like a beast for my entire life?”

The woman broke into sobs and stumbled to her feet before running away. When the sound of the door clanging shut behind her echoed through the room, Fox half-climbed, half-slithered over the edge of his tank until he could reach the cooler. Careful not to drop his tail on to the rough metal grating of the catwalk, he lifted the cooler, dumped the contents into his tank and then threw it onto the floor next to Vasili and Terenti’s tank. Ass.

Fox used his tail to sweep all of the oysters into the small depression he usually slept in and then curled up on top of them, exhausted from the overuse of his fettered magic.

“He could have at least shared them,” Vasili grumbled. He looked over at Terenti for agreement and support, but his brother was sleeping, his hands still held in rude gestures. Vasili almost admired his dedication enough to not be cross.

Almost.

\---

“Just let me have it,” Terenti said.

Both twins were against the tank wall furthest from Fox’s tank. The older merman had thrown a single oyster into their tank and was very obviously watching it while chomping down on two others.

“No,  _ you _ just let  _ me _ have it,” Vasili said. “I’m older, anyway.”

“First of all, no. Second, rude. Third, obviously he wants us to fight over it. Are you going to give him that satisfaction?”

Given that Vasili was practically drooling from the scent of the crustacean, the answer was probably  _ yes, _ but he wanted Terenti to break first. “Being magically collared is harder on me. I deserve it.”

Terenti snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. Before answer, he paused and scratched under the silver armbands the humans had let them keep. Probably because it added to their twin aesthetic. Vasili would have been more bitter about it and taken his off out of spite if they hadn’t been their last gifts from their late mother. Terenti said, “That’s your own fault. You should have known better than to practice a dumb ritual from that octopus witch.”

“We wouldn’t have had to make a deal for it if you weren’t so bad at lying,” Vasili replied.

“I wouldn’t have had to lie if you hadn’t tried to steal from her.”

“I  _ didn’t _ try to steal from her; that was you!”

Terenti blinked and looked up as he thought back. “Oh. Right, it was me. Well, it’s still your fault.”

“Fuck off. I’m eating it,” Vasili said. He pushed off of the glass to give himself a speed boost, but Terenti had the same idea, unsurprisingly, so they reached the oyster at the same time. Vasili put what little magic he had into his marks and snatched at the shell with supermerfolk speed.

Oh, he was faster than Terenti, that was true.

But Fox was cruel beyond measure because the oyster  _ was just an illusion. _

Snarling in unison, the twins launched themselves at the glass separating the tank into two. Vasili’s marks glowed and faded as his magic came and went, but even with the occasional power ups, his fists had nothing on the expensive glass. They screeched vows of vengeance in mermish so loudly that the water in both tanks started to roil with their combined anger.

For his part, Fox just watched them with a smirk. He made illusory fox ears poke out of his red hair before swimming around to hide on the other side of his fake-coral reef.

The twins kept up their assault on the glass until empty oyster shells started dropping into their tank with loud plops. Then, they settled for launching the things out of their tank with extreme prejudice. A few even shattered against the walls. It was amazingly cathartic.

Until the humans came in and shocked them for making a mess.

\---

The next time Fox’s girlfriend appeared, Vasili gave up on pretending he wasn’t interested in other merman’s affairs. He gestured to Terenti and the two of them swam up to the top of their tank. When Fox was leaning over the edge of his tank, the twins lurked behind the fake stone pylon in the center of their tank. Vasili plucked a small fish out of the water and bit into it as he watched the scene.

Fox’s little girlfriend glowed to their inhuman sight, her magic bright and pulsing in the dull human facility. The twins could see the phantom image of her long, white tail as it thrashed in agitation.

“Oh and  _ she _ had the nerve to cry? I’ll give her something to cry about,” the mermaid said. The phantom image of her true form showed her baring her fangs with her pupils narrowed in hate. The magic on her nails flickered out of effect as she grew claws for a moment before she was able to reign in it.

Vasili turned to his brother and bared his own fangs before hissing like a cat and mock-swiping at him.

“I know, right? I want a piece of that,” Terenti said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Shh,” Vasili said, actually swatting at brother. They turned back to the couple, but they’d moved the conversation on.

The mermaid was leaned over the catwalk railing affectionately stroking Fox’s face. It was disgusting. The humans milled around the tanks chattering and shouting as usual, so the mermaid must have put an illusion over herself to keep them from noticing anything interesting. Fox kissed her palm. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Are you really okay in there? I worry about you.” the mermaid said.

“It’s no worse than it was. And I have those idiot twins to amuse me now, at least.”

“Hey-” Terenti started to shout. 

Vasili clapped his hand over his brother’s mouth before he could draw the couple’s attention. “Shut up,” Vasili muttered quietly.

The mermaid looked over at their tank, but didn’t seem to see them in their hiding spot. She looked back at Fox and said, “I’m almost done with the orb you told me to make, but there’s no way it’ll have enough magic for all three of you.”

Fox snarled and his magic made him look like a feral fox for an instant.

_ These two are so fucking dramatic, _ Vasili thought as he rolled his eyes.

“The idiots can hang, for all I care. Once we get this collar off I’ll come back for the girls, but those brats can stay. They murdered a human were shocked that there were consequences.”

“They  _ what? _ ” the mermaid shouted.

“Exactly. Making it worse for the rest of us.”

The mermaid bared her fangs again. “Why don’t I just take care of them?”

Fox chuckled and affectionately tugged on one of his girlfriend’s white-blonde locks. “They’re not worth your time, Bèloved.”

She pouted at him. “I suppose.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they can’t forget me when I’m gone.”

\---

The skittish little girl in scrubs came back the next week with a new cooler. Every step she took along the catwalk seemed to physically pain her. When she reached the small platform next to Fox’s tank, she set the cooler down and pushed it forward with one foot. She bit her lip so obviously that Vasili could see it from the rock he was lounging on at the bottom of his tank. She reached in the direction of the tank - a useless gesture since she wasn’t even close to it. Eventually, she said, “I’m sorry,” before sprinting back the way she’d come.

Fox didn’t pay the girl any mind. He remained curled up in the small tucked away alcove in his tank. Only the thrashing of very end of his tailfins signaled that he’d noticed anything happening at all. 

Well, if was was going to be an ungrateful prat, Vasili was content to let him. He stuck out his tongue and focused on the cooler. When a sliver of his magic came back, it jerked an inch towards his tank. At first, he was incredibly proud of himself.

At first.

Then he did a quick mental calculation of how far along the catwalk he was going to have to move the thing and how long it was going to take to get it within reach. Too long. Certainly not before the nightshift came in with their dinner. Vasili’s nose wrinkled. He and Terenti were still stuck eating fishcake after Fox’s stunt with the last cooler. He tapped his fingers against his arm, but no ideas came to him.

Eventually, he just went back to slowly, agonizingly, tugging the cooler along.

Ten minutes and three inches later, Fox stopped pretending to be asleep and swam up to the top of his tank. Even though he didn’t look over at Vasili’s tank, something about the smug expression on his face made Vasili certain he knew what efforts he was scuttling. Ass.

At the top of his tank, Fox slithered over the edge with practiced grace and opened up the cooler. He tossed oysters over his shoulder into his tank. Occasionally, he would sniff one and throw it into twins’ tank. Vasili was fifty percent sure there was nothing wrong with them and it was just another part of Fox’s psychological warfare. Despite that, Vasili made no move to get them when Fox was still paying attention.

Fox’s hands were quick, but his surprise made him delay long enough that Vasili saw him tuck a ziplock bag into his armpit. The sight was obscured by his armfins, but Vasili  _ knew _ he saw  _ something. _ What could the girl possibly be smuggling him? Human porn? What could Fox possibly want that could fit in a sandwich bag? Vasili spent so long mulling over the puzzle that when he finally swam down to collect the discarded oysters, Terenti had already eaten them. Judging by the pile of shells on the bottom of the tank Terenti was going to have a stomach ache for his selfish trouble.

_ Shellfish _ trouble.

Vasili chuckled to himself before swimming forward to beat up his twin for being a brat.

\---

When Fox’s girlfriend returned later that week, Fox showed her the ziplock bag and she shouted so loudly that it overpowered the spell making the humans not pay attention to her. She swore loudly as she stuffed the bag down the front of her shirt. She was nearly mobbed as people rushed the catwalks to interact with the red and white merman.

Fox dove to the bottom of his tank and hid in his alcove to loud complaints as his girlfriend stalked away with long strides.

Vasili scratched his beard and glanced at his twin. “What d’you think is in the bag?”

Terenti picked his nose and flicked the result off into the water. “Who cares? Something stupid. Those two are idiots.”

“But what if it’s useful? What if they got something good and have no idea what it is?”

“Pfft, what do you think this is? Some stupid children’s film?”

Vasili rolled his eyes and then set about lounging on his rock. The disappointed humans would soon give up on Fox and come watch him bask in all of his blond glory.

\---

Several hours later, just before public session ended, Fox’s shiny little girlfriend returned. She used enough magic to mask their conversation from even the twins, which was incredibly rude. Eventually, Fox slithered most of the way out of his tank until his weight was resting on the catwalk’s railing. He tilted his head back and his girlfriend-

“The skittish little girl brought him bolt cutters! How  _ dare _ she! That was  _ my _ idea!” Vasili shouted, rousing Terenti from his nap.

“Huh, what?”

Vasili pointed up to where the shiny mermaid was standing next to a transformed Fox. The insufferable asshole looked like a trust fund brat that the twins loved robbing. The merman rubbed the front of his fancy vest before taking the bolt cutters from his girlfriend. He replaced them in the plastic bag and tossed it into the twins’ tank. Then, he snapped his fingers and an illusion of his real form curled up at the bottom of his tank.

Vasili could hardly believe it. He swam as fast as he could, his marks glowing despite the magic restraints. He snatched up the bag and blasted it with as much cleansing magic as possible, but the bolt cutters remained bolt cutters. Terenti crowded him and tried to rip them out of his hands. While they struggled over it, Fox walked off with his girlfriend. 

Fox stopped at the door and turned back to the tanks. “Hey morons.”

Vasili almost didn’t look, since it would give Terenti a chance to wrest the tool from him, but when Terenti looked, he did, too.

“Wouldn’t it be terrible if, I don’t know, those were confiscated?” Fox grinned, his mouth full of razor sharp teeth despite his transformation. For a second, fox ears popped out of his hair, then Fox smashed the red LED embedded in his collar. Alarms sounded all throughout the aquarium. Fox’s hair changed from his identifiable red to boring brown as he crossed the threshold out of merfolk room.

“Clever bastard,” Vasili said, even as Terenti punched him and yanked the bolt cutters out of his hands.


End file.
